


Secret For The Mad

by ponderosa16



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Post-War, levi gets his tea shop, references to depression & ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 22:13:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa16/pseuds/ponderosa16
Summary: Years after the war’s conclusion, Levi opens a tea shop in a neat little town where he and Eren can find the respite they’ve been fighting so hard for. But for Eren, the process of recovery has slowed to nothing. Is the love of a man who formerly held the title of Humanity’s Strongest enough to soothe this aching boy’s soul?





	Secret For The Mad

**Author's Note:**

> a little warm-up drabble i completed to get me out of a writing funk!
> 
> this is based on a song of the same name by dodie - if you have the chance to listen to it, please do! enjoy!

Levi opened his teashop at eight-thirty on the dot each morning.

He’d swing the sign over to show the side OPEN in curled cursive, and wait for the steady stream of patrons to arrive, the door’s bell jangling pleasantly with each. This was something he’d dreamed of.

He sold chamomile, and green tea, rooibus and oolong, breakfast tea and black tea - there was enough seating for about fifteen people with more room outside in the summer, and the walls were lined with pots of the seemingly endless varieties that customers could take home and make themselves. Some came in to restock, others came in to refresh, and Levi - formerly Captain Levi of the Survey Corps - served each and every one.

It was a bizarre little life, but Levi had learned to adjust with the same determination with which he’d adjusted to every chop and change in his years. The main difference was that this change was _good,_ an unexpected surprise in the aftermath of war.

The old Commanders - Erwin Smith and Hanji Zoe - frequented the shop to meet with Levi himself, and Levi would leave business in the capable hands of his assistants, Armin and Mikasa, while he drank tea with his old friends and made the most peculiar small talk.

Where previously they’d discussed nothing but the intricacies of battle, the plans of retaliation and mitigation of fatality, now they discussed the weather, and the upcoming ‘holidays’, and the strawberries and tomatoes Hanji grew in their garden. Veteran scouts were now doing things like purchasing houses, and getting married, and there was talk of a fete in the summer to commemorate the newfound peace. It was not perfect, but for many it was a veritable Eden. For Levi, well.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it at all.

And however he felt, he knew of someone who was even less sure than he was.

Levi shut his teashop at five o’clock on the dot every evening. It was not so difficult for him to pack up, as he lived in the apartment space directly above the shop itself - so he counted the till and locked it, switched off the lights, opened the rope keeping the public off the stairs and made his way up.

Almost every night he would find Eren sprawled somewhere on the floor.

Mostly it was the patch of floor by the fireplace, on the rug they’d been gifted as a housewarming present by none other than the incumbent Queen. Green eyes would shift from the empty fire to the door, and Eren would scramble to his feet and curl his arms in a familiar salute - before remembering once more that Levi was not his superior but his partner. They were no longer clandestine lovers but instead dedicated to one another, openly and officially.

“Eren,” Levi murmured. He could not count how many times he had encountered Eren like this - spaced, for hours on end, unable to lift himself to occupy any kind of job or hobby. Some days, when Levi was required to visit merchants early to purchase more tea and was not around to rouse him, he would not leave their bed. He might read the newspaper, or doodle on some paper, but there would be little else throughout the whole day.

Eren was sick. The kind of sick that Levi knew was contained in the mind and yet poured out of the body like muddied water. Many wives told of their veteran husbands encountering similar mental fatigue - Titan-shocked, they called it. As if they knew.

Eren stumbled forward into Levi’s arms, and Levi caught him, holding him tight enough so their heartbeats began to synchronise. Levi felt infinite warmth and comfort in Eren’s embrace, even in his current state. He always had. Night after night they had had nobody but each other, and they would cling like this then, too. Moving from base to base, battle after battle - the night after each hard, merciless day they had left their uniforms at the door and sought each other’s skin.

Eren sought him now, his mouth pressing against the shell of Levi’s ear. He murmured something incoherent and slid a hand up Levi’s shirt - Levi sighed, and Eren took this as confirmation to work on the buttons.

Levi flattened a palm against Eren’s chest. “How long were you down today, Eren?”

“Take me to bed,” came Eren’s distracted reply, and his lips curled up in a slight smile. His hands released Levi’s shirt, the buttons undone. “Please.”

During the war, their love was something stolen. Eren would creep to Levi’s room in the dead of night and they would be frantic, uncontrollable, possessed - clothes were torn, hair pulled, skin scratched, and the both of them got enough catharsis out of it to see them through. At the time, it was the love they needed. Eren would leave before dawn, and they would each catch half an hour’s sleep before the days began over.

Now was different. Levi saw the need in Eren’s eyes, same as it always was - but his response was new. He hushed Eren’s pleas with a kiss, soft and blossoming like the flowers that grew in the beds lining the front of the teashop. Eren tried to deepen it, harshen it, but Levi was convinced of his pace and stuck to it. They kept it slow, and soon Eren was keening into Levi’s touch, a whine against closed lips.

“More,” Eren demanded, almost belligerently. Levi chuckled, and laced their fingers together.

“Where are your manners?”

Eren brushed his thumb over Levi’s. “May I have more?”

Levi’s heart twinged. He needed to talk. They needed to talk. Eren’s mouth was at his neck, and all at once Levi’s mind was made. Touch first. Words after.

They moved to the bedroom, and Levi kept the pace slow enough to keep Eren attentive, responsive, each quiet moan a minor victory for them both. Eren grew louder and impatient, and Levi eventually rewarded him, hitched breath and stammered confessions of love, each roll of their hips cresting a wave that Levi punctuated with murmurs of “you’re so good, Eren, you’re so _good—”_

Levi had to fight off the urge to fall asleep afterwards. Eren was so soft and warm in his arms, so impossibly cozy, and the day’s exhaustion was catching up with him. His eyes landed on Eren, tucked in against his chest, eyes fluttering shut as his chest rose and fell with each breath. He was so peaceful, so bright. So alive, in ways that faded as the hours passed, until he fell to his broken thoughts and became curled and motionless again. Levi would want him this alive all day long, if that wasn’t such a selfish request.

“Eren,” Levi breathed, pressing a kiss to his partner’s forehead. He brushed strands of sticky brown hair away from Eren’s eyes, and their gazes met.

“Yeah?”

“Will you come to the shop with me tomorrow?”

Levi felt Eren breathe in and exhale heavily. Eren had worked in the shop every day when it was first opened - he’d been giddy about it, as they’d all been giddy about everything in those first few blissful months. The honeymoon period came and went, and Eren’s mood dipped from enthusiasm to boredom to depression to apathy, and that’s where they were now. The night terrors had returned, and the days began to drag with heavy, unspoken memories hanging thickly in the air. Everyone was suffering, some more than others. The town that had been commissioned and designed to house the ex-soldiers was a strange and ghostly place to be.

“I don’t know if I…”

Eren trailed off. He held on to Levi tighter. Levi kissed him again, rocking him side to side like a child.

“It will help, Eren.”

“But I’m mad.”

Levi was caught off-guard by Eren’s abrupt response, and he found his tongue tangled in his mouth, an obstruction to his words. “What do you mean?”

“I’m _mad,_ Levi. Crazy. We’re all mad, unhinged. The things in our heads…”

Eren shivered, and Levi held him closer still, feeling for that fluttering heartbeat. Levi knew that Eren still viewed himself as monstrous, inhuman in more ways than one. Levi viewed himself the same. Some of the hardest battles they had fought had been against themselves, but—

“Well,” Levi murmured. He shifted so he and Eren lay side-by-side, face-to-face, brushing his fingers tenderly down Eren’s cheek. “I’ve got a secret for the mad.”

Eren blinked. “Huh? What’s that?”

“One day you’re going to wake up, and you’ll find it doesn’t hurt so bad.”

Eren’s eyes briefly roamed the ceiling before looking back at him. “You… you don’t get it.”

“I know,” Levi said. “Maybe you won’t believe a word I say, because only you know the depths of your own pain.”

Levi leaned in. His nose brushed Eren’s and Eren responded in kind, a smooth and gentle connection.

“But I want to show you that you won’t regret it.”

Eren breathed in again. “Regret what?”

“Opening up,” said Levi, and demonstrated by taking one of Eren’s hands with his own, fanning their fingers out together. “Coming to the shop. Trying to breathe. That’s all you need, Eren, just time to breathe.”

Eren did breathe, and Levi noticed how carefully he was doing it - in, out, almost perfectly timed like a metronome. The cozy silence stretched on, until Eren found the courage to speak quietly again.

“How… how are Armin and Mikasa?”

“Good,” Levi replied with a soft smile, because he couldn’t lie about that if he tried. “They work very hard. The customers value them dearly, and they enjoy helping me. They miss you.”

Eren hummed, head dipping in a slight nod. “I miss them too.”

At once Eren’s eyes filled with glossy tears, and Levi took his face in both hands, lips pressing to the soft skin to catch his tears as they fell.

“Eren. I promise you, it will all make sense again someday. It will not be fast, and it will not be easy. We have a long road to walk together, but I would walk it with nobody else. You are _beautiful,_ Eren, rich or poor, sick or well. Do you hear me? I love you, more than every star in the sky.”

Eren nodded tearfully, and closed the gap to tuck in against Levi again. Levi heard a sniffle, and then, through the aching silence: “Okay. I’ll come.”

———

For the first time in a long time, Eren Jaeger opened Levi’s teashop at eight-thirty on the dot.

He swung the sign over to show the side OPEN in curled cursive, and sat behind the counter for the steady stream of patrons to arrive, the door’s bell jangling pleasantly with each. He looked over at his partner - his Levi - and the thrumming nervousness in his heart was lulled.

Armin and Mikasa were thrilled to see him, and promised to be as kind and gentle as they always, always had. Eren cried again.

The customers began to arrive, and Eren saw faces old and new. Connie Springer and Sasha Blouse, here for a slice of Armin’s legendary lemon drizzle cake. Jean Kirschtein, waltzing in to flirt with Mikasa and - as always - be met with a dry and comical rebuttal. He bought some black tea and scowled over it, but still told Eren in confidence that it was good to see him again. Eren couldn’t help the grin that formed.

Erwin Smith and Hanji Zoe arrived together. They asked for Levi initially, but had the same reaction on seeing Eren - wide eyes and grateful smiles.

“Eren,” said Erwin, squeezing his shoulder. “Sit with us a moment, won’t you?”

Levi watched as Eren sat with them and talked. Hanji showed him a new contraption - “It’s called a cheese grater - does what it says on the tin, pretty much,” - and Erwin told him a few corny jokes he’d been picking up from around town. It was enough to make Eren giggle, and the sound resonated so deep in Levi’s soul it seemed to spread colour throughout the entire shop.

Levi knew Eren would not treat every day so openly. Some days he would regress, and the trauma would be too close, too real again - but Levi was willing to give whatever time and effort it took to see Eren bright-eyed and wondrous again. Humanity’s hope - this time not for victory, but recovery.

The town was a strange and ghostly place at times, full of haunted soldiers carrying memories of fallen comrades - but it was also beautiful in ways Levi could hardly describe. Flowers decorated every street corner, and rebirth rang in the air in the chatter of people no longer burdened by the terror of the Titans. The hall in the centre of town rang out wedding bells almost every weekend, and soon, Levi felt, there would be the laughter and song of new, youthful, brilliant little children - children who had known nothing but peace, who lived out their innocence among the butterflies and daisy-patches.

He and Eren would keep fighting in their own ways, fighting back terror and misery with love and patience, dedication and hope, unbridled and uninterrupted. Their smiles would be a final blow to those creatures who had snatched Eren’s youth away. Their partnership would be a testament to the courage and bravery of humanity.

And they would drink all the tea in the world.


End file.
